Trivializing the dangers may cause someone to endanger themselves or their kids. Mercury toxicity is not trivial.

I tend to disagree a bit on this.

The problem is that so many things are marked as dangrous these days, even when they aren't very dangerous at all. This sends the wrong signal in the long run, people will ignore warnings. When a bottle of household cleaner tells you to seek medical advice upon skin contact, you accidently drop some on your hand, and nothing happens, this teaches that warnings aren't very serious. This is all good and fine, but the exact same warning will be on a bottle of battery acid, and after having learned goods marked as such can be safely handeled, consumers are going to injure themselves at some point.

Mercury is toxic - there is no doubt about it - but the question remains 'how toxic'? I'd say metallic mercure is not all that dangerous, perhaps comparable to lead in handling and even in case of ingestion. The vapours are a concern though - not to a point where you would require safety gear to handle the material, but avoiding chronic exposure from open bottles and spills remains important.

A recommended way of cleaning up small spills is to pick up the tiny droplets by using (ordinary) sticky tape, and discarding that outside of living spaces. This will not work on carpets and such, so work only over hard surfaces.

Those low-melting gallium alloys stick to everything, even glass, making an afwul mess. Mercury will stick to itself more than to anything else, so its always easy to get back into big drops when done playing.

It's sometimes hard to explain our fascination with lasers to others who are do not understand our "lust for collimated light". We always hear the question "but what do you do with them?". I'm thinking that it would be much harder to explain (not that we have to) what we have mercury for. (Just because it's cool to play with....and it tastes good) Bill

I'm not going to argue this out more with everyone. I've said what needs to be known, except this: Not every person reading this thread knows or is capable of using "appropriate precautions" - even if they were included in this thread.
Trivializing the dangers may cause someone to endanger themselves or their kids. Mercury toxicity is not trivial.

Everyone participating in this GB is likely to understand the risks associated with Mercury... If not, I'll make an effort ensure that any prospective buyers understand all the risks and handling procedures before it's sent.

Mercury is toxic without a doubt, but I don't see a reason to piss your pants about it. It's inherently safe if/when handled and stored properly.

I said I'm not going to debate more, but this post is a pointer to more information.

But first a thought-question: many of our smaller-power lasers won't blind someone who is being careful... do we broadcast that it's safe to not wear eye protection??

One interesting thing I found: you can use sulfur powder to absorb the un-seeable bits; sulfur is available at garden stores (it's used as a dusting for plant fungi and molds, mainly on grapes). Oh, another: CFL lights have small amounts of mercury, but the EPA says that they reduce Hg vapor releases because they don't use as much electricity - most of which comes from coal-fired generation, which releases a lot of mercury (I say use LED's instead, that way less electricity and no mercury).

I found this on the E-Medicine site:
Elemental mercury as a vapor has the ability to penetrate the CNS, where it is ionized and trapped, attributing to its significant toxic effects. Elemental mercury is not well absorbed by the GI tract and, therefore, when ingested (eg, thermometers), is only mildly toxic.

that means that it's safer to eat than to spill?
just hold yer breath!

It could be interpreted as 'it is safer to eat than to spill and not clean up the mess'.

There are plenty of cases of ingestion without ill effect - both accidental (thermometers indeed) and intentional - the latter also as suicide attemps due to the toxic reputation of mercury.

Exposure to gas from broken cfl's also occurs regularly, but usually doesnt last a very long time. In reality, the dust from the phosphors in the inner coating of the tube can pose a far greater hazard than the few mg's of mercury released.

So Digital how are you going to ship this if it's not alowed on aircraft. I beleve special ground shipping is expensive, and I know hazmat shipping is an extra $10.00 on top of any postal/shipping charges.

I just read at the german article about HG in wikipedia that about 100 years ago kgs of HG was given oral to people who had an intestinal obstruction ( I hope i got the right word , thats what my dictionary told me ^^") if they didnt die of an enterocele the HG got out of their bodies ... the natural way - without any toxical harms...